


I'll Fix You Up

by spectacular_sociopath



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Nurse Sherlock, Sick John, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 07:09:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3719800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spectacular_sociopath/pseuds/spectacular_sociopath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's ill. Sherlock doesn't know all that much about taking care of sick people but he tries his best much to John's surprise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'll Fix You Up

**Author's Note:**

> I got a prompt for this a few days ago and I thought it'd be interesting to write :)  
> Any mistakes I blame on it being late and me being sleepy but point them out if you spot any :)  
> Enjoy x

Thin beams of morning light filtered through a thick set of dark eyelashes. With the curtains thrown fully open, there was nothing to stop the streams from making their way directly onto the face of the man strewn out on the bed. In his head, Sherlock silently cursed John for opening his curtains on Tuesday. It now being Thursday, he’d had two mornings of disturbed sleep thanks to the doctor’s need to let some light into Sherlock’s ‘batcave’. To be honest, Sherlock didn’t see how it was any of his flatmate’s concern if his room was dark. After all, there was a reason he kept the curtains closed and this morning and yesterday morning both seemed to him to be reason enough for them to remain that way. In a weak effort to block out the infuriatingly persistent rays, Sherlock squeezed his eyes closed as tightly as he could. It was no good, he’d have to move. And he’d been so incredibly comfortable. Not in any way elegantly, the tall man flipped himself over; face now thrust into the pillow in a final attempt to clutch at the last remaining fragments of sleep. And he nearly managed it.

A defeated sigh escaped from Sherlock’s mouth and he threw himself onto his back, the mattress bouncing gently beneath him. So, he was awake now. Flinging his hand onto his bedside table, Sherlock felt around for the phone which he knew should be there somewhere. He found it eventually even if it meant knocking off a stack of papers and sending a plate full of breadcrumbs clattering to the dark wooden floor. The display on Sherlock’s phone showed that it was 8.56 am and he decided that he definitely didn’t want to be awake. Seeing that sleep was no longer an option, tea it was. Slipping out of the warm cocoon that was his duvet, Sherlock tugged on his dressing gown and went in search of caffeine.

After a visit to the bathroom and setting the kettle to boil, Sherlock was surprised to see that John’s work shoes where still exactly when he’d kicked them off last night just moments before collapsing into his chair. That surprised Sherlock as he hadn’t expected John to still be home at this time. He normally left for work around 8.15 which tended to be long before Sherlock surfaced. The detective was just pondering on why John would have worn another pair of shoes when he heard an almighty shout from upstairs.

He immediately sprung into action mode, bounding up the stairs, taking them three at a time, dressing gown billowing out behind him. Sherlock made it to the landing in record time, grabbed hold of the doorknob and burst into John’s room.

“John! John, what’s hap- Oh.” Sherlock had not been expecting that, “You’re... ill.” He said, disgust evident in his voice.

The man curled up in bed in front of Sherlock gave a small snort.

“Well, thanks for the sympathy, Sherlock. And yes, I am ill. Great deduction, there.” John seemed smaller somehow. Deflated. The pillow and duvet to human ratio seemed all wrong, like he was being smothered by them.

“Wasn’t really much of a deduction. Anyone would have notic-“

“Was there something you wanted?” sighed the doctor tiredly. His voice was different too, thought Sherlock. Too nasal.

Sherlock took a few seconds to think over a response. Had there been a reason he’d come up to see John? His caffeine deprived mind, still groggy from the remnants of a not quite long enough night’s sleep couldn’t work it out.

“I heard a, uh, a noise...”

John lay still in bed, eyes squinted slightly, eyebrows raised, mouth dropping open a little. He heaved a huge breath in and Sherlock suddenly knew what the noise had been. The sneeze made the whole bed shake and the man lying on the bed was still for another few seconds, body recovering from its ordeal.

Meanwhile, Sherlock stood awkwardly in the doorway, unsure of quite what to do with the feeble looking man before him. Should he take him to see a doctor? Did doctors ever go to see doctors? That was something he’d never considered.

“I think it’s just a bad cold, maybe flu. Nothing life threatening.” Joked John from beneath his mountain of duvet. “I’ve called work already. I’ve got today off and tomorrow if I need it. We don’t get many in on a Friday and turns out no one wants a sick doctor. Who knew?”

Sherlock blinked at John. “I was just about to make tea. Would you like some?”

Clearly taking a moment to process the fact that he’d just been offered a cup of tea by Sherlock and there was nothing obvious that he wanted, John nodded hesitantly.

“Milk, two sugars?”

His eyes widened a little as the detective correctly recalled how he took his tea. He made a small grunt of confirmation and Sherlock was gone leaving John baffled, congested and alone in his bed.

* * *

Sherlock returned within ten minutes clutching a small tray. As he got closer to the bed, John could see that on it was two cups of tea, a blister pack of paracetamol and a tall glass of water. Carefully placing the tray on the table beside John, Sherlock took his tea and retreated to the other side of the bed where he pulled up the chair from John’s desk and made himself comfortable.

“Painkillers should help with the headache which I’d imagine you have and the water will keep you hydrated. I suppose you have a fever? Before you drink your tea shall we check?” Reaching into the left pocket of his dressing gown, Sherlock pulled out a thermometer. He advanced towards John and handed it to him. John promptly put the tip of the thermometer underneath his tongue and closed his mouth firmly.

“You know,” started Sherlock, unable to keep quiet, “rectal thermometers are far more precise than oral ones. If you wanted a truly accurate reading-“

“Not a chance.” Responded the doctor, tongue plastered down in an attempt not to ruin the apparently unreliable reading on the thermometer.

Soon they both heard the beep of the thermometer and Sherlock quickly reached over, extracted it from John’s mouth and inspected the tiny display.

“38.5 degrees Celsius. High but not dangerously so.”

The doctor grunted and settled back into his layers of duvet. He was only able to enjoy it for a few seconds though because, despite his best efforts at grabbing it back, the bedding was being swept off the bed and onto the carpeted floor beside it.

“What the hell was that for?” bellowed John, outraged.

A thin sheet was tossed, scrumpled up, into John’s lap.

“You’ve got a fever. You shouldn’t have so many warm layers. You should know this, aren’t you a doctor? Now, take your painkillers.”

John sighed in defeat and untangled the one remaining sheet and covering himself with it before reaching for the blister pack of paracetamol and swallowing two straight down with a large gulp of cold water.

“I’ll be back in a minute. That glass had better be empty by the time I get back.” Sherlock said, nodding his head at the water that sat on the bedside table, eyebrows raised.

John let out another sigh. He thought that, if Sherlock was going to take it upon himself to become his temporary carer, he might be doing a lot of that today.

When Sherlock reappeared in the doorway, he was holding a bottle of water and a washcloth. He strode over to the bed, placing the bottle of water next to it and handing the luke-warm washcloth to John.

“For your forehead.” He explained just before leaving the room with a swish of blue silk.

John dozed on and off for a while, faintly aware of the noise of the television coming from in front of the bed. In his half asleep state, the voices sounded muffled to John so he decided to block them out completely and drift back into his haze of sleepiness.

* * *

Sherlock entered the room at 1.33 pm to see his doctor lying twisted up in the one thin sheet that hadn’t been confiscated and sleeping soundly. He thought it was about time he woke up; he’d been sleeping all day, for God’s sake! Obviously, the only logical way to wake John was to take a step forward and toss the bottle of water he’d been bringing him in the direction of his sleeping body.

John’s eyes opened his eyes at the sound of a floorboard creaking beneath Sherlock’s step just in time to see the incoming bottle. His let out a light puff of air as it landed on the left side of his chest.

“You can have more paracetamol now and I’ve made sandwiches,” came the voice of the detective standing just inside the door. He proudly presented the two plated sandwiches he held in his hands. “You can have cheese or... Cheese.”

“I’d say cheese sounds fairly appetising.” Chuckled John, propping himself up on his pillows and reaching out for the sandwich once he realised that he was actually hungry.

Sherlock made sure that the plate was just slightly out of his reach. “Pills first.” He said, seriously.

Obediently, John swallowed down two more tablets and the two men sat, happily munching on their sandwiches and watching whatever the disappointing soap John had been sleeping to was. Neither man spoke but it was a comfortable kind of silence.

It turned out that Sherlock, while he may be a genius in most areas, was very limited in his knowledge of food preparation. He’d already managed sandwiches today and for dinner, he made John beans on toast. He used the term loosely. He’d thought there was very little that could possibly go wrong with a simple meal like this but this was one of those few and far apart times when he was wrong.

The toast was slightly burned and crispy and the relative amount of beans to toast was all off. Sherlock told John that he’d had to sacrifice many of the beans as they had been burned onto the bottom of the pan when he hadn’t thought to stir them. John still appreciated the effort though. The great Sherlock Holmes had just made him beans on toast. Well, he tried.

* * *

Friday came around and John’s cold had progressed into a sore throat, headache and runny nose. As well as this, he’d gained a tickly cough which did nothing for making his throat feel better. Luckily for him, though, his fever had broken so he supposed that he’d be allowed his duvet back. He would normally go into work at 2 o’clock on a Friday. They only ever got a few appointments and most of the other GPs were in. John didn’t feel like he could easily get down the stairs let alone deal with hours spent in a doctor’s surgery. He decided that another day in bed was in order and that he’d return to work on Monday.

Sherlock burst into his room at around 10 am. “So, John, now that you’re- oh. You’re _still_ ill? But you were ill _all_ of yesterday.”

“That’s not how it works, Sherlock.” The morning was off to a good start already. “Lots of people are ill for more than one day.”

Sherlock blinked at John, seeming to be genuinely surprised by this new knowledge.

“Lestrade didn’t have a case for me yesterday and you weren’t much fun so I took it upon myself to design a new version of our favourite board game.” Sherlock announced.

“No.”John nearly shouted, “I told you that I was never going to play Cluedo with you ever again. Not after what happened last time.”

“But this version’s better! The rules actually make sense now and every possibility’s accounted for!”

“What, so anyone can be the murderer now?” Scoffed John earning an irritated sigh from the other man.

“I hadn’t expected you to play. You weren’t very good. Even at the simpleton version. Maybe Mycroft and I can have a game sometime.” He murmured, pulling up the chair he’d used yesterday and picking up the remote to flip through channels on the small television.

John alternated between finding entertainment in Sherlock’s musings about the people on the TV and having short nap sessions. Sherlock gradually got more and more worked up by the reality shows that were showing at this time of day until eventually, the frustration with the ‘mindless idiots’ grew to be too much and he sprung up from his seat. He declared that he was making John soup and then left the room without another word leaving John sitting in his mountain of blankets, completely bewildered.

* * *

An hour or so, a few shouts of pain and what sounded like the smoke alarm going off for five minutes straight, John heard footsteps coming up the stairs. A few seconds later, an incredibly flustered looking Sherlock appeared beside John and a bowl of soup was placed in his lap along with a spoon and a bread roll.

The doctor suspiciously eyed the floating chunks of what looked like cauliflower in amongst the greeny-yellowish liquid desperately hoping that Sherlock hadn’t incorporated anything from his own section of the fridge into the soup. Eyeball and gall bladder soup didn’t seem all that attractive at the moment. John glanced up at Sherlock.

“Bon appetite.” Grinned the detective, clearly pleased with his effort.

Fortunately for John, his first mouthful of the dodgy looking soup was interrupted by the shrill ringing of Sherlock’s phone.

“What is it, Lestrade?” The brief conversation seemed disjointed to John as he could only hear Sherlock’s side of it and everyone knew how excellent his conversation skills were. He managed to work out from what he could hear that something had come up that they were struggling with and Sherlock was wanted down at the yard. Nothing new there.

The phone call ended as abruptly as it had begun and then Sherlock was talking to John.

“Robbery that Lestrade and his minions can’t work out. I should probably go to see if I can sort it. Will you be okay on your own?”

“For god’s sake, Sherlock. I’ve got a cold, I’m not a child.”

“Good,” was Sherlock’s response, “I’ll see you in a bit then. Shouldn’t take long. ”

And John was left alone again.

* * *

 It was 8.26 pm when Sherlock got back to Baker Street. He clattered around in the kitchen for a few minutes, making tea, John supposed and after that, the soft thuds of socked feet could be heard ascending the stairs to his room.

John was not surprised when he saw a mass of dark hair and blue silk enter his room, in fact, he was comforted by it.

“Case was predictable. Boring.” groaned Sherlock, flopping down on the unoccupied side of the bed after setting down the two cups of tea he had brought. John gaped at him, adding another thing to the list of surprising things Sherlock had done in the past 36 hours. “Suspect was obvious. Tricky to get evidence, though. How do you prove someone was robbing a bank on one side of London while they’ve got five or more people saying they saw him on the other side? He did a pretty good job of it actually, covered all bases. Well, not all of them obviously but as many as could be-“ Sherlock paused to let out an enormous yawn, “-expected for a man with-“ another yawn, “-mediocre intelligence.”

John could see that Sherlock was exhausted from the case and, in seeing this, realised that he too was tired. Not that he had any real reason to be but being ill was draining. He laid his head down on one of his pillows and allowed himself to drift off.

The two men fell asleep leaving their forgotten cups of tea to go cold on the bedside table.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed it and any feedback you have would be awesome :)


End file.
